Bridge at Cheneaux - ASL KGP II
Wanted to write up a quick AAR for Bridge at Cheneaux. As my opponent wanted the Americans, I happily got the Germans. My plan was to fight a fall back defense, slowly collapsing to the bridge. My defensive line went across the village then turned and went along the woods line. The vehicles were set up behind the infantry line to provide depth. The AA Gun was at the bridge and the 105 was at the "corner" of the line providing cover for the stream bridge and able to take on either group of Americans.

His attack was pretty straight forward. Moved the guys on my left up to the woods and pushed through. The village attack was a straight forward push up the middle.

The woods attack went well for him. I slowed him down a little, but then made the mistake of reinforcing a melee, which left me with too few squads and too much ground to cover. He started getting infiltrations, some of my guys broke and the bridge fell by turn 4.

His village attack went horribly. He tried a couple of turns of prep fire to break me which didn't work. SS in stone buildings with mist are pretty tough. I skulked during my turn. Finally was able to strip concealment on the 9-2/HMG/HS, so I left them back a row. Then around turn 3, he broke the lone squad left in the front line and came in to surround him and eliminate him for failure to rout. That was a mistake. he got s HS on one side of the broken guys. The squad sent to the other side took some PB HMG fire. The 9-2 basically negated the building TEM, so they broke. He then tried to get an 8-0 and a 9-1 into the same building. A shot from a FlaK wagon and a sustained fire HMG (very risky with ammo shortage but I was trying to save a full squad) broke the 8-0, but only wounded to 9-1. Wasn't enough to save my squad, but it did crush his attack and he had to rout back. I retook my original positions and even waxed a broken squad of his in CC :-).

After the bridge fell, I pulled what I had left into the back of the village and held out for the win.

This scenario seems tough on the American. The Germans can basically pick where they want to defend strongly and concentrate their forces there. He didn't have enough time to get through the woods to the bridge and then move back up into the village.

For the Americans, I would try to maneuver around the German position instead of pounding through them. A spread out line can be pierced with easily with the 747's (especially in the woods) Put a tight line in stone buildings is hard to break. Move around it and force the German to move because he is getting surrounded, not because he is breaking. Remember, all you have to do is get him out of the buildings, not destroy him.

Chris